Four Conversations on the Subject of Flight
by wildcatt
Summary: Flying is not as perfect as you imagine it to be, you know. Flying is just falling up. Nejiten and Team Gai in 2 parts.
1. Part I

**Four Conversations on the Subject of Flight.**

**Flight** (flīt)

n. 1. The act, manner, or power of flying.  
2. The act or an instance of running away; an escape.

* * *

_She can't remember which goddamned country she is in anymore, but it really doesn't matter. The earth is wet and viscous beneath her, the cold seeping through torn cloth and clenching sharply into every bone. A thin mist hovers in the air, smudging the sky a pale, dirty grey. She can still smell the sulphuric stench of the poison but it no longer chokes the air around her, the heavy gas no doubt having sunken slowly into the trenches that demarcate the nearby land._

_Her throat is burned raw, flashes of acid gold exploding across her vision with each inhalation. Hypothermia is going to set in soon if she doesn't get the hell out of here and so she winces, forces back a whimper as she digs her elbows into the ground and heaves herself upright. Barren, wet fields stretch out endlessly into the horizon in all directions, broken only by the irrigation channels dug deep into the ground. There is no one here, only the stark silhouettes of dead black trees thrusting up dead black limbs in search for a sun that is not there. Tenten is alone without even an enemy-nin to remind her who she is and why she is here, cast adrift in the middle of nowhere and she's trying to roll onto her knees and to push herself up off the ground but she can't help but think _this is what I tried to tell him, this is exactly how it feels.

_She remembers flying, steel in her hands, the thrill of victory arching her spine as she sees the enemy flee or sink into the mud. Oh she flew alright, but this is the aftermath that must be faced and suddenly her knee gives out and she lurches forwards, hands shooting out in front of her but it is too late, she's tumbling into the trench she swears had not been there a minute ago and yes, there's the yellow smoke, there's the poison and she's down and under and her throat is scorching her fears into oblivion._

* * *

It is only a year before his fight with Naruto that she tells him: "Flying is not as perfect as you imagine it to be, you know. Flying is just falling up."

"What are you talking about?" he asks, languidly watching her calloused fingertips as they ghost between his. He feels mildly confused, a little irritated; it is unlike Tenten to speak in riddles.

"I'm talking about flying," she explains absently, eyes on the vast expanse of blue stretching out above them. "I'm talking about counting birds, the sky, leaving. Freedom."

"Freedom?"

"Isn't that what you want?"

His gaze shifts to her face, frowning. "You know what I think about such things."

"What, that you'll never have it?"

"Fated not to."

"But you want it anyway."

He does not reply, merely holding out his other hand for her as she helps him retie his frayed bandages. They are taking a short break from sparring, resting between the gnarled roots of an enormous oak growing near their training grounds. The sun is out and pale, hazy swathes of sunlight sink slowly down upon them through the branches, settling softly over the rich hazel of her hair.

"I know you want it," she persists unhurriedly, "But freedom is not….freedom is….."

"Is?" He raises an eyebrow with a sceptical expression entirely too old for his thirteen year old features. Tenten only shrugs.

"Intimidating. Terrifying, almost. Look at me," she says, "I don't have a family to hold me down, nothing that really binds me to anything or anyone. After a while you begin to think that freedom means being alone, and sometimes…..sometimes I feel like a drifter, like I'm lost. It's so easy for me to leave that it scares me, somehow."

"I can't understand that," he tells her bluntly, and she smiles. A deft flick of the wrist, a final tug of her fingers and she has secured the knot tightly around his arm.

"I wouldn't expect you to."

Neji looks at her and wonders childishly why she cannot appreciate her liberty; why she is so afraid of leaving, when it is all he wishes for.

"Let's start again," he says instead, picking himself off the ground, and she only echoes him quietly as she follows:

"Yes, let's."

* * *

He finally understands what she means seven years later, standing in front of the Hokage's desk and staring at the painted mask placed before him.

"Congratulations," Tsunade says coolly, running a lacquered fingernail along the rim of her mug. "You're in ANBU."

An eyebrow arches in mild confusion. "I didn't apply. Couldn't," he reminds her, the faintest trace of resentment lacing his voice.

"True. But I want you there, we're running short of men, and the top dogs over at ANBU have had their eyes on you for a long time now. You must have known that your curse seal was the only reason why they never recruited you earlier, Neji, and now that Hinata has been kind enough to abolish the branch system it can no longer present a danger to yourself or your fellow shinobi."

There is a palpable tension in the air as he silently examines the mask, bone white against the mahogany desk. The porcelain is painted with thin streaks of red and arches up into the cruel curve of a hawk's beak. He remembers the day Hyuuga Hiashi died, barely a year ago, killed protecting the clan during yet another raid in the Akatsuki's game of hide and seek with Leaf. Konoha is limping, restless; no official declaration of war has ever been made because there is nothing to fight against but a handful of renegade missing-nin hunting down their final jinchuuriki. Instead they are stuck painfully and awkwardly in the middle of a struggle that drains them little by little, still comparatively one of the strongest of the hidden villages in the shinobi countries but bleeding, losing its best as they follow the Uzumaki and leave the rest behind to haemorrhage and stumble. The past three years have been an exhausted cycle, scattered months of a thin, brittle peace lulling the lower ranks into a false sense of security before word comes of yet another fight between Team 7 and one of the Uchiha, yet another casualty, yet another raid upon their very doorstep that leaves their homes burning and a dozen more names etched onto the memorial stone. Sarutobi Asuma. Jiraiya. Mitarashi Anko. Maito Gai.

"I'm sorry." He shakes his head slowly. "I'm….honoured, to be asked, but I'm afraid I can't accept the offer."

"Why not?" For some reason Tsunade does not appear surprised. "It's ANBU, Neji. I would have thought an ambitious young man like you would jump at the chance to serve with them."

"I would like to, but…"

"But you have a team."

"Yes." He inclines his head politely and Tsunade sighs, leans back in her chair and looks him straight in the eye.

"Not anymore, you don't."

Silence.

"You've disbanded-" he begins incredulously, but she cuts him off impatiently with a brisk wave of her hand.

"I haven't disbanded anything. Your teammates - Lee and Tenten - came to see me two days ago. It was their decision to terminate Team Gai, not mine."

"They never told me anything about it." He's gripping the edge of the desk so tightly his knuckles drain white. "Why wasn't I consulted about this?"

"Ask them yourself." She shrugs, but there's a sympathetic light in her eyes as she leans forwards and gently pushes the mask towards him. "You're free now, Neji. I suggest you take advantage of it."

It is only later, as he steps gingerly out of the building and narrows his eyes at the crisp autumnal sunlight, that he realizes _freedom _and _falling _feel exactly the same; that suddenly he's been cast adrift like a feather in the wind, without fate or habit or even those closest to him to anchor him down; and that he is afraid.

* * *

"I know you're there," Tenten says the next evening, pulling a kunai out of one of the trees circling their training grounds and rubbing a thumb thoughtfully over the disfigured bark. Neji emerges wordlessly from behind an old oak, arms crossed.

She moves around the clearing, picking up the steel littered on the ground. When he doesn't say anything she looks up calmly, face carefully blank: "Well?"

"You didn't tell me about this."

"Tell you about what?" An unfurled scroll, a scattering of words muttered under her breath; the weapons vanish and thick lines of calligraphy melt onto the parchment.

"Tenten, what are you doing?" he demands quietly, each word edged with finely restrained anger, and she starts because it's the first time he has ever used that tone with her. "Breaking up the team behind my back and then acting as if everything is perfectly normal – what the hell do you think you are doing?"

"Look, I'm really tired right now," she mutters; "Just got back from a mission…I only came here to work off the adrenaline. Perhaps you should save the questions for Lee when he comes back from his tomorrow."

"Or you could just tell me what's wrong so we can be done with all this nonsense."

"Nothing's wrong," she tries again, almost pleadingly, "Isn't this what you've always wanted?"

"What, leaving Team Gai?" He stares at her in disbelief.

"No….ANBU. You've always wanted ANBU."

"Yes, but –"

"And now you can have it. Don't you see? Lee and I, we thought…we didn't want to hold you back. It'll be a while yet until we're capable of catching up with you and-"

"That's not true."

"It is. You know it."

"So that's it," he snaps at her, and his voice is rough and bitter (but Tenten knows him enough to realize that his anger means _fear_ and that his words mean _don't let me go). _"You're just happy to see this…see us….gone. Finished." He ends awkwardly, his usual control and quiet confidence deserting him when he tries and fails to express anything remotely sentimental.

"Look, Neji, it's not like we were going to stay together forever." Her expression darkens when he looks at her as if she has gone insane. "We _weren't, _Neji, you should have realized after Gai-" Her voice cracks. "-after Gai died, that nothing like this could be permanent…..Lee and I can't stay with you constantly. And it wasn't like we were taking missions together regularly anymore, anyway; I mean half the ones I take are solo or with someone else and I know it's the same for you, too."

"But if I'm in ANBU there will no possibility of any team missions at all," he reasons almost pathetically, feeling something twist deep in his gut when Tenten merely gives him a small, sad smile.

"We'll still see each other around. I mean –" She reaches out and punches him lightly on the arm, but he doesn't smirk like he used to and she falters slightly. "– It's not like we won't still be friends, right?"

He doesn't reply, merely staring down at her, examining her features intently and trying to work out where she has changed and how he has missed it. Tenten stands up on her toes, bracing herself against his shoulder; her lips press lightly against his cheek and he brings a hand up hesitantly, fingers sliding against the curve of her back to pull her close.

"ANBU needs you. _Konoha _needs you. But the three of us…we'll be okay, Neji," she promises him softly, because she knows that despite his current anger he will join ANBU to become even better, stronger, knows that he has wanted this for far too long and now he will have to face the consequences.

A pause.

"…No." His voice is oddly detached and he steps back, letting his hand drop stiffly to his side. "No, I don't think we will."

"_Neji." _But he's already turning and walking away. He hesitates briefly a few feet from her; she waits for him to look back and say something, anything – but after a moment he only moves on, and Tenten wonders why her heart can feel so damn _heavy _when she is the one who has cut him away. (She prefers to think of it as a matter of _opening the cage, _only right now she isn't quite selfless enough to feel happy about that.)

She lets a long moment go by, staring expressionlessly after him in the middle of the clearing. And gradually it dawns on her, clear and brittle as autumn light: this is kindness. The world is not hers anymore; she has given it away, let it slip through her fingers with the quiet rustle of fine cloth.

_Fuck it, _she mouths silently, fingers curling tightly into the dry parchment between her fingers. _I miss him already._

* * *

"Do you think we did the right thing?" she asks Lee one afternoon, the two of them sprawled on the ground after a sparring session. "Do you think that, maybe…we should have discussed it with him first, and if he had really been against the idea, we could just have stayed together and…."

She trails off and stares up at the pale winter sky shimmering above them. It feels strange, not spending time with Neji every so often; they had stopped training together exclusively two years ago, their conflicting schedules having made it far too impractical, but he had still sought her out as often as possible for a quick spar or an afternoon in their old training grounds. Now there is….nothing. Only silent glances or formalities, only hurt and blame and cold.

The first time they met after their argument she had passed Neji in the corridors of the Hokage tower. They had walked past each other wordlessly, acknowledging the other with only a polite nod. Tenten had told herself that it was only because they were both too busy, too preoccupied at the time with work to do anything more. All too easily, however, once became twice became three months of ignoring each other this way: three months without a proper conversation or a meal together, three months of silence.

She glances over at Lee when she feels him squeeze her hand.

"I do not regret it." He smiles at her, not the blinding grin that he used to inflict upon them when Gai was still alive: this is gentler, subtler, kinder. "And neither should you."

"I hate how he's still angry at us….you'd think he'd realize by now that we did it for his sake." She sighs. "I miss him."

"So do I," he tells her gravely, "But you know as well I do that Neji-kun - as much as I respect my eternal rival - is rather thick in the head and would never have worked out what was good for him without some help from his friends. Neji-kun always talked admirably of breaking free, but he never seemed to realize that the chains were his own."

True enough, Tenten thinks ruefully. Neji had always needed to have things beaten into him before he could abandon his own preconceptions and accept new ideas, new ways of life.

She doesn't tell Lee that he's there sometimes when she trains alone in the evenings; that sometimes she can feel his chakra, muted but still recognizable, hidden in between the foliage as she flings herself into the air, spinning amongst her smoke and dragons; that now and then she'd catch a glimpse of a porcelain mask and a flash of pale skin, but every time she'd looked closer there'd inevitably be no trace of the Hyuuga.

Tenten wonders who he trains with nowadays.

"I just never thought it'd come to this, really," she muses, eyes squinting against the sunlight; "After spending so many years as a team, growing up together…I mean I always knew that we were bound to break off sometime and move on, but I thought he'd know it too and that he'd take it better, really…I thought it wouldn't just end like this."

He tilts his head thoughtfully. "This is not the end, Tenten-chan. We still have a long way to go."

She blinks at him, mildly startled. He is right, as usual, and she lets out a short breath of laughter before replying: "Yeah. Next year, when the applications open for ANBU, you and I…we're gonna get in and give Neji a good beating in the ass."

* * *

One year later the invitation to join ANBU arrives after gruelling entrance exams and they finally realize what Neji had figured out years before. There are no permanent teams in ANBU. The mortality rate is too high; it would be simply inefficient and even dangerous to develop team bonds to the depth achieved in the average shinobi squad when one or two or all of a group could be eliminated without warning.

They see Neji sometimes in the ANBU headquarters, at a meeting, during debriefing sessions. They see a few others from their year, too, or at least recognize a bristly black ponytail or the kikaichu scurrying up the arm of the shinobi in the corner. Their real names are never mentioned. The ANBU address each other according to the animal on the mask, forcibly reducing a person to cold, hard porcelain. Often these are mere formalities: when she nods to Stork in the corridors Tenten knows that Shiranui Genma still hasn't given up his habit of chewing on his senbon, that Tiger is about to go on leave for god knows how long because Kurenai is pregnant again and the slight swelling beneath the silver ANBU uniform is becoming harder to ignore. When Monkey greets her exuberantly outside the Hokage's office she knows that the idiot is Lee not merely from the unfortunately unmistakable shiny bowl cut, but from the sheer warmth still so apparent in his voice despite the fact that they can hardly spend time together outside of work anymore.

After a while Tenten finds that she now responds to Phoenix as easily as she does her real name, and she finds that she doesn't mind, really. It's easier this way.

Between missions she still teases Shikamaru when he becomes embroiled in yet another tug of war between Temari and Ino, still jokes around with what's left of the rookie nine at the Ichiraku every once in a while; but once she steps foot into the ANBU headquarters Shikamaru becomes only a colleague at most, becomes only Crow, because there is no such thing as _friendship_ for the ANBU (or there isn't supposed to be, anyway). At most there is _duty, Konoha, captain, subordinate, _and so they put on their masks and they forget and they fight and they bleed themselves dry, alone, always alone.

Formalities are there for a reason. She learns this the hard way two months into her work with ANBU, stumbling into the common room set aside for operatives waiting to report to their higher-up's. She had injured her ankle during the last mission, making it awkward now to negotiate the door with the thick stack of paperwork in her arms. She leans her back against it instead and tries to push her way in to what she assumes to be an empty room, but a sharp pain shoots up her leg as it turns and she hisses quietly, flustered and annoyed by her difficultly in opening a goddamn door of all things. When she finally manages to slip through her bangs are in her face, she is visibly limping and a familiar Hyuuga is sitting on the floor, leaning against a couch with clotted blood staining an entire arm and half way through the process of wrapping fresh bandages around his hands.

Perhaps it is due to her frustration, perhaps it's the fact that she has come into minimal contact with her former team mate in the past year; in either case Tenten hesitates, surprised despite herself. He looks up and she feels her mouth go dry, a dull ache clenching in her chest.

"…Neji?"


	2. Part II

**Four Conversations on the Subject of Flight.**

**Part II**

He's wearing his mask, like her, but she can see the pale glimmer of his eyes behind the porcelain. His gaze rests on her face for a moment, hands stilling mid-air. Crimson blossoms steadily into the bandages around his wrist.

"What happened?" she asks despite herself, slackening her hold on the reports and quickening her pace into the room. She winces at the sudden, yanking pain in her ankle but drops the paperwork on a chair and turns to face him with hesitant concern. "Do you want me to –"

"I'm fine." His attention is back on the bandages, loosely bound hair falling thickly to obscure his eyes. Tenten reaches down into a pocket and twists a kunai nervously between her fingers, the cold metal reassuring against her skin as she watches him a little helplessly, hating the brittle awkwardness that jars the air between them.

"Yes?" Her head jerks up; she had been unwittingly staring at his fingers, noting the new, unfamiliar scars he has acquired. She doesn't recognize his hands anymore.

"Sorry." She blushes, inwardly wincing at the cold, polite tone he's using with her. "I wasn't…..I mean…..look, you might as well let me help you since you're obviously having trouble tying those up." He had been moving slowly, jerkily, inhibited by the injuries down his forearm. Before he can protest she is kneeling by his side and taking his hand in hers, determinedly ignoring the way his shoulders immediately stiffen at her proximity.

"I can do it myself."

"Oh shut up," she tells him, trying hard to sound brash and cheerful. "You know you've never been very good at this. I always had to help you retie the damn things after training, remember?"

He doesn't reply, but he doesn't remove his hands from her grasp either and for that Tenten finds herself feeling absurdly relieved. She works quickly and methodically; when her fingers graze his, thumb brushing against the warm underside of his palm, there's a tingle of recognition and she can't help but smile. His hands have changed visibly but she knows that even if she is to go blind she would still be able to identify them by touch alone.

She doesn't let go of him when she finishes, pretending to busy herself with a fraying knot here, a rip in the cotton there. His palm is completely covered by the bandages but everything knuckle down has been left free; she allows herself to run her fingers lightly along a new scar that cuts horizontally across the back of his, the serration evidently caused by a blade slicing across his closed fist. For a moment Tenten feels like they're back in their genin days, sitting under an old oak between spars, fingers interlinked.

Then he gently slips his hand from hers and she looks up, startled from her thoughts. The sight of a mask instead of his face jars her rudely to her senses; in _those_ days they never had such things as painted porcelain obscuring their expressions from each other, this barrier of secrecy and duty and formality.

"Neji?" she asks in a small voice, wanting irrationally to reach up and remove it from his face. His eyes are unreadable, pale and blank and distant, and Tenten is scared that he is too far from her now for her to ever find him again. He's moving away and gathering up the bandages from the floor, leaving her alone on the cold tiles. She scrambles up to follow him but her ankle gives way and she hisses in pain – "Oh, _fuck _this," – falls back down, but Neji turns smoothly and grabs her by the waist to keep her from hitting the ground.

"You should be more careful," he tells her quietly, carefully setting her upright; "….._Phoenix_." Then he removes his arm from around her and suddenly she is cold, colder than she has ever felt before.

His refusal to use her name – her _real _name, Tenten, Tian, Heaven – is a rebuke, a sharp reminder that hurts her more than she is ready to admit. Tenten stands very still for a long moment, staring at the floor. It is only when another ANBU enters the room (his superior, calling Neji to his office to report on his mission) that she moves, turning away and pretending to sort through her paperwork (but her mind is numb and her fingers only grasp meaninglessly at the pages); when she hears the door shut quietly behind them she closes her eyes and reaches up to press her fingertips against her mask, finally resigning herself to the fact that here she is not _Tenten _but _Phoenix,_that she and Lee might never catch up with Neji after all despite their joining ANBU, and that the day she set him free from Team Gai she had also set him free from herself.

* * *

_She wakes up briefly after the smoke clears. A light breeze had picked up and after god knows how many hours the poison has mostly dissipated, leaving her curled up and uncovered at the bottom of the trench; she licks her lips slowly and winces, tasting sulphur and acid and blood. Tenten is cold, alone, and she wonders vaguely whether the other two masked ANBU had managed to escape under the cover of her diversion. She can barely think coherently anymore, however, and each thought becomes harder and harder to cling onto until finally they all but disappear, fading inexorably back into the darkness._

_Tenten closes her eyes and follows._

* * *

The next time she sees him they are standing in the Hokage's office with seven other ANBU members, a semi-circle of faceless shinobi clustered silently before her desk. The mission Tsunade is assigning is an important one even by their standards: three teams are to be sent out on three different but interlinked strands of the same job, spread over two countries far, far from Konoha. Tenten looks around and sees Crow slouched in the corner – a given, given the complexity of the mission – sees also Stork, Scarab, Hawk and three others she cannot recognize.

In the end she is assigned to a team with Scarab and one of the unfamiliar, female operatives. After completing their part of the mission in Water country they are to meet up with the second team as their backup, if all goes as planned, to remove any renegade nin that may follow the latter on their way back to Konoha. Tenten does not give any sign of surprise or awkwardness when she learns that Neji is to lead their partnered team; she addresses him correctly and politely when the six operatives meet later to discuss their plans, asking questions and discussing mission details with professional calm and formality.

"After the ninth day," Scarab is telling them quietly, "If we have not turned up at the checkpoint, you should continue on without us. We may encounter trouble near the coastline on our return. It is best that we do not hinder your progress."

Hawk nods in agreement. "If that happens we will change the route slightly, to follow this –" He runs an elegant finger down the curve of a river on the map before them. "-down to the border, so if you do miss the deadline you can take the detour through the flatlands. We'll wait a further two days there."

"So in total, including traveling time….that's fourteen days." Stork chews absently on his senbon as he does the calculations."Should be plenty of time for you to get your asses there, huh? You guys better be on time. There's no way we can keep the target alive long enough to survive the journey back otherwise."

Scarab nods, standing up to signal the end of the meeting. A thin black line of kikaichu scurries from his chair into his sleeve. "We leave tonight, then. If there are to be any changes to the plan, I'll be in the laboratories."

Tenten lingers by the table while the others file out of the room. When Neji passes her she reaches out, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder to hold him back. "Hawk."

He pauses and looks down at her. She doesn't remove her hand; out of the corner of her eye she sees Crow glance their way, eyes hooded knowingly behind his mask, before shoving his hands into his pockets and tailing the others out the door, a faint "Troublesome" muffled behind porcelain.

Neji remains silent, watching and waiting for her to speak.

"Take care," she tells him simply. She can tell that his eyebrow is arched questioningly behind his mask and shrugs in response. "That's all I wanted to say."

A moment later he nods."You too."

Then he disengages his shoulder from her touch and walks away, and Tenten remembers that this will be the third time that he has left her behind, or maybe the third time that she has let him go; at the back of her mind she wonders whether there can ever be a difference between the two.

"Goodbye," she calls out. He doesn't turn around, only lifting a hand in acknowledgment.

It is the last time that he ever hears her voice.

* * *

_When she comes to again there is shouting in the distance. Phoenix, she makes out through the hollow ringing in her ear; Phoenix, Operative Phoenix, can you hear me?_

_Fools, she thinks, the enemy-nin will find you. Then she remembers that the enemy-nin are currently buried and bleeding in the mud, sliced through by her steel. Her lips part and she tries to call out, but it is taking all her effort just to stay conscious and even breathing is agonizing. She had lost track of time after being knocked out by the poison gas, but there had only been one day left before their deadline when the fight had broken out. What day is it now? she wonders. Fifteen? Sixteen?_

_They should not be here._

_"Operative Phoenix!" The voice is nearer now; she can recognize Scarab's low baritone echoing across the fields. Then, someone else:_

_"She's there. On the left, fifteen metres from the tree, in the trench."_

_Neji._

_Her eyes flutter shut. Neji is here. Neji has come back for her._

_A moment later she is being lifted up from the trench and onto the open field. Her mask is slid off; the air is blessedly cool against her skin._

_"She's too cold." Scarab. She feels the vibrations in his chest before he lays her carefully on the grass. Tenten tries to open her eyes but she's too tired, a heavy weariness weighing down every muscle, every bone._

_"Operative Phoenix." She can hear Neji by her side. "Operative __Phoenix_, can you hear me?"

_Yes, yes I can hear you, she thinks, and she can see the light filtering through her eyelids; the world is not so dark anymore. Briefly she feels fingers tracing her cheek, before a hand takes hers and if she could she would smile because even if she is to go blind she would still recognize him by touch alone._

_"__Phoenix_," he tries again, voice low and tight with desperation.

_"Her pulse is weakening. We should get her back as soon as possible." She feels herself being cradled, stray strands of long hair falling cool against her cheek. Neji is carrying her and running at the same time but he hasn't given up yet because he is terrified, absolutely. Fucking. Terrified, that she might leave him again to drift alone in this hell she actually believed could be freedom._

_"__Phoenix_. _Phoenix_, can you hear me?" And so he keeps trying and trying and trying, voice cracking with each word. "_Phoenix_. Tenten. Tenten, wake up, Tenten._ Don't leave me, don't you _dare _leave me-_"

_And she is already half way back to unconsciousness but the moment she hears him finally say her name – _Tenten_, not __Phoenix_ or ANBU Operative, just Tenten_ – something unclenches in her chest so hard, blossoms outwards so forcefully that she can feel her heart breaking over and over and over again._

* * *

She is allowed a room by herself in a section of the hospital reserved for ANBU. It is early spring: crisp, clean sunlight filters in through the large window, pooling crystal clear on her bed sheets. A gardener is planting chrysanthemums in the grounds outside and Tenten watches him, curled up on the window seat in nothing but a thin hospital shift.

He's overcrowding them, she thinks. Chrysanthemums are prone to disease and should be more loosely packed to ensure sufficient air circulation, what kind of gardener is he to not know _that? _She considers tapping on the glass and calling out to catch his attention but then abruptly remembers that she can't; her hand comes up, fingers tracing reluctantly against her throat.

Her vocal cords had been burned out by the poison, Shizune-san had told her. She should consider herself lucky that it didn't do irrevocable damage to her lungs. Tenten breathes out slowly, leaning back and setting her gaze on the sky. She catches glimpses of grey and white wings fluttering against the pale blue backdrop and smiles wryly. _One, two, three…_ Despite the medication her throat is still dry, scalding, raw. She will never speak again, Shizune-san had said. _Four. Five. Six, seven…_

"What are you doing?"

She turns around, face brightening; Neji is leaning against the doorway with his mask in his hand. He had entered without her knowing, watching her quietly from the other side of the room. When she gestures at him to come closer he pushes himself off the door and strides forwards calmly, allowing her to tug him to the window.

_Counting birds, _she mouths, holding up seven fingers. It's the first time he has visited since she regained consciousness but Tenten remembers him in the darkness, a familiar hand covering hers. Lee said that Neji had come in with him regularly during the three days she had been out. The corners of his mouth lift in a faint smile.

"How are you feeling?"

_Better_. It is strange, watching her lips part and form the words while unable to hear anything but her light breathing. Briefly he is reminded of a silent movie: she is painted unnaturally with a grey and white palette, her face still too pale, hollow shadows under her eyes. Her unbound hair falls darkly onto the white cotton of her shift. He threads his fingers hesitantly through her tresses and is glad when a touch of pink diffuses slowly across her cheeks; to him Tenten had always been the brightest contrast to the grey of the Hyuuga and he prefers it that way, likes to see her colour against his own subdued hues.

"Good." His hand moves down to trace slow circles across her back. Tenten blinks tiredly, fingers curling tighter into the fabric of his vest as she pulls him even closer, resting her forehead against his chest. A quiet moment later he speaks again: "I quit ANBU."

She jerks back, almost hitting the window in her surprise. _What? _She looks horrified. _Why?_

"Lee quit, too," he tells her softly, tucking her hair behind her ears. "We're handing in our masks later in the afternoon."

She shakes her head. _You shouldn't have. _She's getting agitated and forces herself to slow down, form her words clearly enough to be read. _Why did you do it?_

"You know you can't stay in ANBU after this."

Tenten rolls her eyes but a sharp panic is prickling at the back of her mind because he cannot actually be sacrificing his position for her, can he? Of _course_ she knows that she'll have to step down; a mute shinobi taking on ANBU level missions is not only suicidal but dangerous for her teammates. But Neji doesn't have anything to do with this. Neji is doing brilliantly, rising up the ranks as quickly as expected._This is exactly why we had to break off Team Gai, _she tells him, _I _will not_ be the reason why you're unable to do what you want._

He opens his mouth to reply but she places a finger on his lips, silencing him with a fierce glare. Is he out of his mind? she thinks despairingly. She and Lee had let him go despite everything and now he's just going to go docilely back into the figurative cage and throw away the key? _For someone who loved to monologue on the subject of freedom every now and then, you sure are willing to give it away without thinking it through properly. Don't be a fool, Neji._

He removes her hand, enveloping it in his instead and eyeing her with faint amusement. "I'm not giving anything away." His voice lowers. "I chose this myself, Tenten. Isn't that enough?"

She shakes her head. _Then why were you so angry when I….when we decided to let you go and join ANBU? You never chose to be put into Team Gai._

He is silent for a moment. Tenten looks away, biting her he tugs gently at her hand and her eyes widen, wary and somehow afraid of what he might say.

"No, I did not." He speaks slowly, weighing each word deliberately, carefully. "I had no say in the matter when I was put into Team Gai, but - Tenten, I chose to stay even after Gai died, even after Hinata-sama abolished the branch divide, because I _wanted_ to."

_You wanted ANBU too, _she points out.

Neji shrugs. "I prefer working with a steady team," he says, meaning _I want you more. _He looks down and smiles hesitantly for her. "Freedom is not the same as leaving, you know."

Freedom does not mean flying solo, either, and Tenten realizes with a start how lonely he really has been when she wraps her arms around his waist and he immediately reciprocates, looking almost relieved as he pulls her tightly against him and rests his chin on her head. She presses a soft kiss on his collarbone and closes her eyes, holding him and smiling when she feels him relax under her touch.

After a while she pulls away so he can read her lips. _What next?_ She looks at him uncertainly, an eyebrow raised in question.

"Well." Neji tilts his head slightly, watching her expression."I've applied to Hokage-sama to create a new Jounin team."

She blinks at him.

"To restart an old one, rather," he amends, and Tenten finds herself involuntarily breaking into a grin.

_Are you sure? _She's trying to be sensible, to think this through clearly and reasonably. _It'll be difficult, working with me. I won't be able to shout or call out or-_

"Lee is loud enough for all three of us," Neji interrupts her grimly. Tenten slaps him lightly on the shoulder but she is grinning again because he is right. "Besides," he continues smoothly, "That's all the more reason why you should work with people who know you well enough." It _would_ mean, Neji admits silently to himself, that he'd have to look at her mouth every so often, which might just become quite problematic if the past few minutes are to be any indication.

Tenten realizes that he is staring at her and blushes, licking her lips hesitantly. Neji swallows.

_What are you looking at, _she narrows her eyes, trying to fight down the heat spreading across her face and feeling alarmed when he shakes his head while leaning down, muttering – "Sorry" – and pressing his lips firmly to hers. She grabs him by the shoulder to steady herself, pulling him down and he slams a hand against the window to support them both, breath catching when she bites down gently on his lower lip. Their kiss is slow and thorough and languorous and neither of them notices that the gardener and a few hospital staff have gathered in the grounds below, watching the proceedings with interest.

_Well, _she tries to mouth after they finish, each word punctuated by a short gasp of breath: _Well, you didn't really need to apologize for that._

"No?" Tenten notes with dark satisfaction that he looks decidedly flushed for a Hyuuga.

_Definitely not. _She shakes her head, and when he smirks at her and catches her hand they both realize that they will be alright; the most important things don't need to be spoken to be understood, after all, and the look in her eyes as she smiles up at him already tells him everything that he needs to know.

_Fin._


End file.
